Study reveals ‘evolutionary glitch’ as possible cause of common childhood ear infections. Researchers at King’s College London have uncovered how the human
ear is formed, giving clues as to why children are susceptible to
infections such as glue ear.

The mystery of exactly how consumption of extra virgin olive oil helps
reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) may lie in one component of
olive oil that helps shuttle the abnormal AD proteins out of the brain,
scientists are reporting in a new study. It appears in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

The
study used rats and monkeys to test the therapy's ability to replace
the kind of brain cells destroyed in Parkinson's and relieve the
disease's movement disorders. The animals were given a neurotoxin to
induce Parkinson's symptoms. Rats showed improved movement and the
monkeys produced higher levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter essential
for movement.

A mutual curiosity about patterns of growth and development in pig
brains has brought two University of Illinois research groups together.
Animal scientists Rod Johnson and Ryan Dilger have developed a model of
the pig brain that they plan to use to answer important questions about
human brain development.

For the first time, scientists have transplanted neural cells derived
from a monkey's skin into its brain and watched the cells develop into
several types of mature brain cells, according to the authors of a new
study in Cell Reports. After
six months, the cells looked entirely normal, and were only detectable
because they initially were tagged with a fluorescent protein.

It happens to everyone: You stay up late one night to finish an
assignment, and the next day, you’re exhausted. Humans aren’t unique in
that; all animals need sleep, and if they don’t get it, they must make
it up.

The biological term for that pay-the-piper behavior is “sleep homeostasis,” and now, thanks to a research team at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, one of the molecular players in this process has been identified – at least in nematode round worms.

Most people think that veterinarians are doctors who treat cats and
dogs, provide compassionate, expert care but also charge amply for their
services. This narrow view means that a vet's work is underestimated
and, often, not respected. In reality their role is substantially
broader and yet their leadership potential is generally overlooked.

While many vets are caregivers for our domestic animals -- and it's
very important work -- a larger mission is to focus on minimizing the
transmission of infectious disease and help tackle world hunger issues.

Alligator blood is showing to be a potent antibiotic in lab testing at McNeese State University. These keepers of the bayou are known for their tenacity, but behind
the alligator's piercing eyes and sharp teeth is an immune system that
is as ferocious as the primitive creature.

Scientists may be better able to study how heavy drinking damages the
liver using a new mouse model of alcohol drinking and disease developed
by researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health. The
model incorporates chronic and binge drinking patterns to more closely
approximate alcoholic liver disease in humans than any existing method.
A report of the new model appears in the March issue of the journal
Nature Protocols.

New research from the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation shows that
eating a high-fat diet produces a similar effect to starvation in cells
and could be key in understanding why cells “flip the switch” to burn
fat instead of sugar in the early stages of diabetes.

Mollie Heinz had two surgeries to remove parts of her bowel due to flareups of Crohn’s disease.

Even
so, the 37-year-old mother from Maryland Heights isn’t so hot about the
idea of ingesting the eggs of pig whipworms to treat the condition. The eggs, it seems, might be the latest icky way to treat a bacterial balance gone bad in the human gut.

For years, researchers have worked to decode the mysteries of how dogs
that race 1,000 miles perform so well -- and how to help them. Research
on the physical stamina and the high-performance metabolism of Iditarod
dogs has led to changes in the way the animals are conditioned, cared
for, fed and rested. Now, from the wintery reaches of the northern
United States, the iconic dogs of Alaska's Last Great Race are helping
keep American soldiers safe in the deserts of Afghanistan.

Stanford scientists have demonstrated a technique for observing hundreds
of neurons firing in the brain of a live mouse, in real time, and have
linked that activity to long-term information storage. The unprecedented
work could provide a useful tool for studying new therapies for
neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.

When it comes to hanging on tight, the lowly mussel has few rivals in
nature. Researchers have sought the secrets behind the bivalve's
steadfast grip on wet, slippery rock. Now, reporting here today at the
annual meeting of AAAS (which publishes ScienceNOW), a researcher said he has used the mollusk’s tricks to develop medical applications.
These include a biocompatible glue that could one day seal fetal
membranes, allowing prenatal surgeons to repair birth defects without
triggering dangerous premature labor.

Gene
therapy has successfully banished type 1 diabetes in dogs, the first
time this treatment has worked to treat the disease in a large animal,
according to a study published online in the journal Diabetes earlier this month (February 1).

What would happen if all clothes were made to fit only one person, or at
most, that person and his or her identical twin? Whoever it was, this
one person wouldn’t represent all people. I hope this is an obvious
statement—we all have differences in every measurement possible, and
certainly no manufacturer would make a line of clothing tailored only to
one person’s size.

But imagine taking this person and testing a
new drug in her. Or him. Would you consider the drug fully tested for
all people? No, it’s common sense that different people would respond
differently, a concept borne out by the presence of side effects of
varying severity for every significant pharmaceutical. But historically,
that’s how most drugs have been selected for development until very
late in the process. And that’s just one reason why it’s important to
discuss the full story behind the recent New York Times article “Mice Fall Short as Test Subjects for Humans’ Deadly Ills.”

It’s been three months since Hurricane Sandy barreled along the East
Coast, plunging the majority of Manhattan and surrounding boroughs into
darkness, and displacing hundreds of people from their homes. As
neighborhoods continue to rebuild, and in honor of the three-month
anniversary, President Obama recently signed the much-anticipated Sandy Relief Bill for $50.5 billion.

One group awaiting some of that recovery funding are scientists and researchers from New York University (NYU), who lost years of research
in cancer and neuroscience when the storm knocked out the power
supporting their freezers, and water flooded their animal facilities,
drowning their mice.

Mice carrying human disease genes have proved valuable for learning what
goes awry in people. Now, researchers have tapped the rodents to
understand human
evolution. Mice with a human version of a gene called EDAR have more sweat glands than normal, providing clues to how East Asians adapted to a
humid environment 30,000 years ago.